292. And cast their crowns before the throne. That this signifies humiliation and acknowledgment in heart at the time that nothing of good is from them, but that all is from the Lord, is evident from the signification of crown as being good and wisdom therefrom (concerning which see above, n. 272); and from the signification of casting their crowns before the throne, or laying them down there, as being to acknowledge, from humiliation, that the good thereby signified is not from themselves, but from the Lord alone; for to cast away is to renounce self; and to lay them down before the throne is to acknowledge that it is from the Lord alone. The good here signified by crowns is the good of love and of charity; this good flows in from the Lord alone, and is received by the angels of heaven and by the members of the church in truths from the Word. Truths from the Word, both with angels and with men, are in their memory; from this the Lord calls them out, and conjoins them to good, in proportion as the angel or the man is in the spiritual affection of truth; he has this affection when he lives according to truths from the Word; conjunction is effected in the interior or spiritual man, and thence in the exterior or natural man. This conjunction constitutes the church in man while on earth, and afterwards constitutes heaven in him. It is evident therefore that without such conjunction no one can be saved, and also that no conjunction of good and truth can be effected unless man lives a life of love; to live a life of love is to do the precepts of the Lord, for to love is to do, since what a man loves that he wills and that he does, but what he does not love that he does not will and therefore does not do.